The Search feature in Outlook 2010 and 2007 is a great tool, almost eliminating the hard task of manually searching through hundreds of folders/subfolders for a particular email you might need at that point in time.
But like any other tool, the search is only useful if its working fine and fulfills its purpose “finding the item you are searching for“…
Have you had problems whereby:
1. The search did not find the email you expected it to find based on your qeury
2. The results provided were OUTDATED
The likely reason for this search problem could be that the indexing of Microsoft Windows and Office System datafiles (called search catalog) is incomplete.
Rebuilding the search index can easily solve this.
Here is how to rebuild the Search Index:
Warning: This process takes a long time. I suggest you run it just before you leave the office for the day (or just before you go to sleep at night):
Bring up the Indexing Options screen. (Instructions below depending on your version of Windows)
- Windows 7/Vista: Click the Windows Start button and type “index” in the Search box. Indexing Options should appear under programs. Click Indexing Options to bring up the Indexing Options screen.
- Windows XP: Click Start > Control Panel > Indexing Options
- Click the Advanced button on the Indexing Option screen.
- Click the Rebuild button.
Your current Search Indexes will be deleted and rebuilt. Once the rebuilding process is complete (I told you that this will take some time so hopefully you’re doing this just before you leave the office or go to bed) you should find Search working perfectly again.
Do you have any other suggests for solving Search problems in Outlook?
Please us know by leaving a comment below.
Allow me to say, this is a splendid article. Well researched. Job well done!
Excellent – thank you.